BLOOMINGTON — Scott Dolson used a particular word, speaking with IndyStar in the wake of Curt Cignetti’s recently refreshed contract last week. One that as much as any put forth the fundamental job of everyone around Cignetti’s team for the next six weeks.
Indiana, Dolson said, felt an urgency around getting Cignetti’s new contract signed to show the Hoosiers’ second-year coach his university was invested in his success. And, Dolson said, his department wanted to make sure it was doing all it could to eliminate any “distractions,” as IU football chases history.
That as much as anything else is the remit of all parties surrounding this team between now and Nov. 30, by which point Vegas odds and computer projections both suggest there’s a good chance the Hoosiers are 12-0.
Indiana is a sailboat in an open-water race now, with a fair wind and following seas. What’s required from here is reducing all possible drag. Dolson’s words suggest he knows this.
It’s what made locking up Cignetti’s new contract — and putting to rest all speculation about Penn State, or Florida, or anywhere else — so important. It’s why the university paid a premium to move quickly, playing offense, not defense, in ensuring this extremely successful status quo in Bloomington remains.
It might also have left Cignetti slightly irked at Fox’s decision to send its “Big Noon Kickoff” pregame show to Memorial Stadium this weekend before IU plays UCLA. The fanfare around made-for-television content like “Big Noon” and ESPN “College GameDay” only ever gives coaches headaches.
But if this team was going to be distracted by that kind of ephemera, it would’ve happened by now. This will be the sixth time one of “Big Noon” or “GameDay” has attended an IU game in the last two seasons. The Hoosiers are 3-2 in such games, and 2-0 at home.
That has been the foundational superpower of Cignetti’s teams, really throughout his career but certainly since arriving at Indiana.
Nowhere does Cignetti resemble his Hall-of-Fame former boss, Nick Saban, from his days in Tuscaloosa more than in the ability to take a team full of 18- to 23-year-olds and train them to shave off all distraction and outside noise, then worry purely and completely about what’s in front of them.
Consider Indiana State and Illinois, two games played in consecutive weeks the stakes of which could probably not have felt more different.
In both games, Cignetti enjoyed the luxury of a fourth quarter spent cycling in second- and third-stringers, resting starters while getting young players valuable snaps. IU attempted just two passes in the fourth quarters of those games.
And yet, the Hoosiers’ leading rusher in both games, Khobie Martin, was among those reserves. He broke 100 yards twice in as many tries. Even when the game was long past decided, the pressure relieved and the peril removed, Indiana kept executing like a team chasing something greater than a celebratory Saturday night.
Cignetti’s greatest strength — more fundamental than talent acquisition, player development or schematic evolution — is simply his ability to coach his team to a core philosophy he repeats religiously:
“We play one play at a time, six seconds a play. Every play’s got a life of its own.”
That as much as anything explains why his team is one of the lead boats in the race. And why it’s of paramount importance that the supporting cast around them do all it can, every day, to keep reducing any potential drag.
Want more Hoosiers coverage? Sign up for IndyStar’s Hoosiers newsletter. Listen to Mind Your Banners, our IU Athletics-centric podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the latest on IndyStar TV: Hoosiers.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Curt Cignetti’s new deal eliminates Indiana football distractions so it can give each play ‘life of its own’
Reporting by Zach Osterman, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
